Advice concerning training BJJ/MMA and weight lifting.

Hello everyone,

I'm training BJJ Gi + NoGi and MMA on Mondays Wednesday and Friday evenings at the moment, and sometimes Tuesdays as well. I'd like to try and fit in a gym schedule with as well where I can train mainly compound lifts such as starting strength which I'm following. Would it be best to try and get in the gym on the days I'm not training or go the gym say in the morning and then train in the evening?

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Originally Posted by MattCompo

Hello everyone,

Would it be best to try and get in the gym on the days I'm not training or go the gym say in the morning and then train in the evening?

Thanks!

Yes.

Train when you can. Get your lifting and rolling in whenever you can, and make sure you are eating/sleeping enough and you will be fine. Scheduling to maximize rest days is a good idea, but if you get to bed early, a little extra volume won't hurt you.

And lo, Kano looked down upon the field and saw the multitudes. Amongst them were the disciples of Uesheba who were greatly vexed at his sayings. And Kano spake: "Do not be concerned with the mote in thy neighbor's eye, when verily thou hast a massive stick in thine ass".

This might going against what a lot of people do, but I usually tried to keep my lifting days on the same days as I did MMA/JJ. The reason being because the next day is a recovery day anways, and this way you spend the same recovery day for both sessions. This works particularly well when you're in school or not working that much (shift work in my case), but with a full work schedule it's probably a bad idea. Doing a morning/evening split might result in you not getting much sleep, and therefore isn't worth it. This of course depends on how hard you are going at the gym. If it's cardio and other exercises that aren't too stressful it might not be a problem, but doing heavy lifting will require extra recovery time, which you would be sacrificing to get up early in the morning.

Depending on how hard you want to train (obviously), I would do heavy weight training on saturdays (with maybe a lighter MMA session on friday) and that way you are recovered for class on monday night. Going to class twice a week and doing weights 2-3 times a week may also be an option, but this depends on what is the priority.